Publication For Employees
January 1973
inside
Safety Drive Slated for Pesticide Users
Pesticides that don't poison the
environment may be very dangerous
to the farmer who stores them in
his barn and spreads them on his
crops.
As EPA's cancellation order
made DDT illegal for almost all
crop uses after Dec. 31, the Office
of Pesticide Programs launched a
massive program to assure that
farmers will use chemical substi-
tutes safely.
Many of the replacement pesti-
cides are organic phosphate com-
pounds, which can be extremely
hazardous to the user, although they
degrade rapidly when applied to soil
or crops and do not persist in the
environment. The greatest danger is
from poisoning, through inhalation
or through skin contact from acci-
dental spillage.
Aimed at 14 States
In a key portion of the program,
called "Project Safeguard," the De-
partment of Agriculture, with finan-
cial backing from EPA, will zero in
on farmers in 14 southern states
with a direct training effort aimed
particularly at growers of cotton,
soybeans, and peanuts—crops for
which DDT was used most heavily
in the past.
Working through Agriculture's
State Cooperative Extension Serv-
ices, local farm leaders will be
trained as safety aides. They will
make face-to-face contact with their
farm neighbors and offer advice on
the use of the substitute pesticides
that will be needed during the 1973
growing season.
EPA is transferring $750,000 to
Agriculture for "Project Safeguard,"
and the Department is contributing
$350,000. Both agencies have an-
nounced they will make additional
funds available as needed, although
they hope that a one-year intensive
training effort will be sufficient.
•The 14 States involved are Ala-
bama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mis-
sissippi, North and South Carolina,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and
Virginia. All but two of these are
in Regions IV (Atlanta) and VI
(Dallas). Each State will have a
director-coordinator to oversee the
effort in that State. Special attention
will be paid to reaching the small
farmers—an estimated 170,000 of
them—who are not normally in
touch with Federal and State exten-
sion service workers.
Three-Phase Program
Getting the word to the farmers
via "Project Safeguard" is the first
of three aspects of EPA's work to
make a safe and effective transition
from the use of DDT and other en-
vironmentally harmful pesticides.
The second aspect is enlisting the
cooperation and assistance of the
medical profession, hospitals, and
local health authorities in dealing
with accidental pesticide poisoning.
This is the responsibility of the
Office of Pesticide Programs' Di-
vision of Technical Services, cen-
tered at EPA's laboratory in Cham-
blee, Ga.
The third aspect is publicity
through newspapers, TV, and radio
to inform people everywhere about
pesticide problems and hazards and
the effectiveness of safe practices.
This is the responsibility of EPA's
Public Affairs offices in headquar-
ters and in all Regions.
A hard-hitting safety handbook
titled "Don't Poison Your Family,
Yourself, or Your Livestock" is
being printed for use in "Project
Safeguard" and for wide public dis-
tribution. The handbook and an in-
structor's manual are to be sent to
regional offices this month.
New methods of pest control that
do not involve user hazards are
under intensive study in EPA and
other government agencies and by
outside research groups under EPA
grants. These involve biological con-
trols, or crop management tech-
niques, or combinations of both.
Such programs are not expected to
be ready for practical application
during the 1973 growing season.
Technical Seminar
Draws Full House
A Technology Transfer Seminar
on reducing pollution in the metal
finishing industry was held in New
York last month for 130 repre-
sentatives of electroplating factories
and state regulatory personnel in
Regions I, II, and III.
The demand for the sessions was
so great that many applicants had to
be turned away, and another sem-
inar for metal finishers will be held
in Philadelphia Jan. 30 and 31.
The meetings are aimed at ac-
quainting certain industries, par-
ticularly those involving many
smaller manufacturers, with the lat-
est developments in environmental
control, said Paul Minor of the Of-
fice of Research and Monitoring's
Technology Transfer program.
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Extinction Seen For Yellowstone Grizzlies
Grizzly bears will become extinct
in the Yellowstone Park area in an-
other 20 years unless Federal and
State wildlife management policies
are changed, a biologist told an
EPA-sponsored lecture audience in
Denver last month.
Dr. Frank C. Craighead Jr. said
the actions of the National Park
Service in recent years were deci-
mating the population of grizzlies in
the Yellowstone ecosystem, the last
refuge of the big animals that once
dominated the Northwest.
Craighead spoke at the third of
a series of monthly lectures sponsor-
ed by the Technology Transfer
Committee of EPA's Region VIII.
Russell W. Fitch is committee chair-
man. The lectures are designed to
expand the environmental aware-
ness of the EPA staff and are open
to the public also.
Craighead and his twin brother,
John, also a wildlife biologist, have
been studying the species, Ursus
horribilis, for 12 years. Their articles
on grizzlies' feeding habits, move-
ments, reproduction, and population
changes have been published in
scientific journals and popular mag-
azines.
How To Tail a Bear
The brothers' research has in-
volved tagging the animals and using
collar-mounted miniature radios to
monitor their movements as well as
careful tracking, observation, and
photography. They have formed the
Environmental Research Institute
based at Moose, Wyo., and are
pursuing their studies outside Yel-
lowstone Park, since the Park Serv-
ice no longer permits them to work
within the park, Craighead said.
Specificallv, the Craigheads object
to the Park Service's sudden closing
of garbage landfills that the grizzlies
had come to use as food sources.
These closures should have been
gradual, Craighead said, to give time
for the bears to return slowly to
their natural foods.
The sudden closures caused bears
in the park—an estimated 250—to
—National Parks photo
A grizzly bear mother and two cubs roam over Yellowstone grassland.
seek garbage or other food nearer to
campgrounds and inhabited areas,
he said. Man-bear encounters in-
creased, sometimes with tragic con-
sequences. Campers have been
maimed or killed, and the maraud-
ing bears promptly shot.
The Park Service also tries to
trap all grizzlies found in peopled
areas and take them to remote sec-
tions outside of the park, in the hope
that they will stay far from the
campgrounds and learn to fend for
themselves. This tactic seldom
works, Craighead said, because the
bears soon make their way back,
and then they get killed.
Of 19 grizzlies moved outside the
park last year all but one are known
to have died, he said, and hunting
pressure outside park boundaries
has further reduced the Yellowstone
grizzly population.
'Planted' Food
The Craigheads have demon-
strated that grizzlies will congregate
around animal carcasses to feed,
and they suggest that elk carcasses
be "planted" in wilderness areas to
entice the bears away from the
campgrounds and tourist centers.
Park rangers regularly kill many elk
to limit the herd size to numbers
the range will support.
Carcass planting is one of the
brothers' recommendations for im-
proved grizzly management. Others
include a moratorium on bear hunt-
ing in the Yellowstone ecosystem,
reduction of bear deaths caused by
predator poisoning programs, and
continued improvements in camp-
ground sanitation.
In the long run, Craighead said,
the Park Service must seek to limit
man-bear encounters by managing
people rather than bears. And this
requires the resumption of inde-
pendent research within the park.
Craighead concluded his talk with
a plea for greater efforts to preserve
the Nation's wild and scenic rivers,
particularly Clark's Fork of the
Yellowstone and the Teton in the
West and the Potomac in the East.
Rivers need protection as much as
forests and wildlife, he said.
— 2 —
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EPA Co-Sponsors
Atlanta Conference
On Urban Noise
An EPA-sponsored Environmen-
tal Noise Conference attracted more
than 150 persons to Atlanta last
month for two days of intensive
study on the problems of noise in
the urban environment.
Dr. Clifford R. Bragdon of Geor-
gia Institute of Technology, noise
consultant to EPA's Office of Noise
Abatement and Control, was confer-
ence administrator and head of a
nine-member faculty for the ses-
sions held Dec. 19 and 20 at the
Georgia Tech campus.
The conference was co-sponsored
by the University and the Region IV
office of the Department of Housing
and Urban Development, as well as
EPA.
The faculty included Dr. Joan
O'Dell, EPA regional counsel;
Charles R. Foster and Harvey S.
Safeer, Department of Transporta-
tion; James H. Botsford, Ralph K.
Hillquist, and Richard K. Miller,
industrial noise control engineers;
Kent C. William, Georgia Tech; and
Robert A Baron, co-chairman of
the New York City Council's noise
control committee and author of
"The Tyranny of Noise."
Continuing education credits were
given to conference participants by
the University. The sessions covered
the physics of sound, measurement
procedures and instrumentation, and
control applications for transporta-
tion, construction, and other indus-
tries. Existing Federal, State, and
local noise control legislation was
discussed, including environmental
impact analysis, and the potential
role of citizens' groups in noise
abatement.
Attendees include public officials
and administrators, city planners,
architects, consulting engineers, edu-
cators, and other interested in noise
control problems.
Louisville's 'Ecology Court'
Meets Twice Each Week
Every Tuesday and Friday after-
noon in Louisville, Ky., Judge
Brian Schaeffer presides over "Ecol-
ogy Court," a special tribunal for
hearing cases Involving air and water
pollution, trash dumping, and other
violations of local environmental
laws.
Other cities have special courts
for police cases, traffic violations,
domestic relations, and so on, but
Jefferson County (Louisville) is be-
lieved to be the first to have an
Ecology Court.
It was established a year ago by
County Judge L. J. Hollenbach 3rd,
who is chief administrative officer
of the county as well as head of its
judiciary.
The court has heard more than
800 cases in its first year, and only
a handful have been dismissed, ac-
cording to Robert T. Offutt, secre-
tary-treasurer of the Jefferson
County Air Pollution Control Dis-
trict, whose complaints are respon-
sible for a sizable portion of the
twice-weekly docket.
Judge William H. Walden pre-
sided over Ecology Court until
three months aeo, when he became
ill, and Judge Schaeffer was named
to replace him.
Fines range from $10 to as high
as $500 a day, plus court costs of
$19.50, recently raised from $18.
The average fine is about $37. De-
fendants range from householders
accused of burning leaves to indus-
trial and commercial establishments.
The City of Louisville was fined for
faulty operation of an incinerator.
Several public schools and the
Southern Baptist Theological Sem-
inary have also been fined. About
three-fourths of the defendants are
industries, who usually "plead guilty
and get out of court as quickly and
quietly as possible," as one court
official put it.
The APC district has five depu-
tized, badge-carrying peace officers
who are empowered to make formal
complaints hauling accused air pol-
luters to Ecology Court, Offutt said.
Other cases come from the county
Board of Health, from the police,
from the zoning commission (in-
volving improper uses of land), and
from private citizens.
Citizens whose complaints lead to
convictions may claim rewards of
from $10 to $25. Such rewards were
authorized when the Ecology Court
was established, but so far no one
has come forward to collect.
Have other cities followed Louis-
ville's example? Local officials don't
know, but they think so. Visitors
from "25 or 30 U.S. cities and sev-
eral foreign countries" have come
to watch the court in operation and
to talk to local officials about how
it is organized, Offutt said.
Don't Forget EPA
Scholarship Fund
Payments to EPA officials for
speeches or articles should be
turned over promptly to the EPA
Scholarship Fund, Robert F.
McDonald, fund manager, has
announced.
Busy officials may forget that
the fund exists, or forget to ask
that proffered payments be made
in the form of voluntary charita-
ble contributions to the fund, that
was created to provide a useful
outlet for such honoraria and
fees. Federal regulations forbid
agency officials from accepting
for their own benefit any pay-
ments for speaking or writing in
their official capacities.
The fund supplies scholarships
for sons and daughters of EPA
employees, in amounts up to
$500 per year according to need.
Sixteen students have been
awarded scholarships for the cur-
rent school year.
Fund monies are deposited in
the EPA Employees Federal
Credit Union and are dispersed
each summer to scholarship win-
ners chosen by a five-man board
of trustees.
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Walkers in Philadelphia
Relish Exercise, Variety
—Phila. Inquirer, Charles James
EPA Attorney Ann Joseph enjoys
her two-mile walk to work each day.
Three young EPA employees in
the Region III office in Philadelphia
do their bit for the environment by
walking to work each day. They
were among four pedestrians button-
holed at random by reporter Domi-
nic A. Sama of the Philadelphia
Inquirer and interviewed for a fea-
ture story last month.
Ann Joseph, 26, an attorney in
the office of the regional EPA coun-
sel, told Sama she walks the two
miles from her home to her office
and lets her sister-in-law in the
country use her car on weekdays.
"Walking to work wakes you up
and calms you down," she said. It
takes half an hour but saves 70 cents
in bus fare and provides a lot of
window-shopping and people-watch-
ing time.
"Just recently I met a girl I
haven't seen since my freshman year
in college seven years ago. Now we
have renewed our friendship. She
walks to work too."
Car Pool Tried to Be Bus Line
The car pool had a dream, but
it turned out to be the impossible
dream.
When Region IPs Water Pol-
lution Branch was moved last
spring from Edison, N.J., to the
regional office in downtown New
York, Daniel Kraft had an in-
spiration.
Why not get together and buy
a small bus or an airport lim-
ousine, and ride to work in style,
saving money and reducing traffic
jams and air pollution?
Out of about 40 people moved,
Kraft reasoned, 10 or 15 lived
quite close to the place where
they used to work, and all were
traveling the same route (about
30 miles each way) at the same
time each day. They could in-
corporate themselves, insure the
vehicle, and take turns driving.
The capital cost, he figured,
would be about $200 each if 15
people joined.
Five others in Kraft's car pool
—Charles Durfor, Barbara Metz-
ger, Roland Hemmett, and Jo-
anne Brennan—agreed. But there
was only one other recruit, and
she was soon transferred back to
Edison.
Human individualism and le-
gal doubts prevailed. Most peo-
ple he approached, Kraft said,
didn't want to make an invest-
ment that they might not be able
to "sell" to someone else if they
had to drop out. And lawyers
advised that the individual driver,
as well as the corporation, could
be sued if the bus was in an acci-
dent.
So Kraft and his co-workers
are still just a car pool, albeit a
full one; two members who own
VWs drive only when someone
is sick or on leave.
Lucille Paris, 28, a secretary in
the deputy regional administrator's
office, said her mile-long, 20-minute
walk is "the best exercise you can
get when you're sitting behind a
desk all day."
Stopping for Soup
"I will detour my route sometimes
for a change in scenery and to stop
in my favorite restaurant for some
onion soup," she said. "I never take
the bus unless the weather is really
bad. The tempers are so short on
the bus or subway. Everybody is
in a hurry."
Some people are afraid of walk-
ing the streets, she said, "but if
more would walk and get out, the
streets would be safer. I've never
had any trouble."
Tim Kent, 25, who works in the
regional public affairs office, doesn't
even have a driver's license and sel-
dom regrets it.
"I walk about a mile, and I take
10 or 12 different routes," Kent
said. "I never walk the same way
two days in a row."
"Walking is handy. I can pick up
my dry cleaning or stop at the
grocery store. And sometimes I beat
the bus home," he said.
One Drawback
Kent said he misses not having a
car only when he's taking a girl
out on a date. "Then I take the bus
or trolley, but normally I try to find
a girl with a car."
About 72,000 people walk to
work in Philadelphia, according to
the 1970 Census, Sama reported,
compared to 274,000 who use pub-
lic transit and 309,000 who drive.
The walkers have their reasons, he
wrote: "It's good exercise; it of-
fers the pleasure of window-shop-
ping; the cool, early morning stroll
wakes them up; it's cheap; and it
avoids the misery of bumper-to-
bumper driving, parking, and the
uncertainty of the scheduled public
transit carriers."
— 4
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Great Lakes Cleanup Gets Under Way
International and multi-state ef-
forts to halt pollution of the Great
Lakes were outlined by Francis T.
Mayo, regional administrator for
EPA's Region V, at a recent meet-
ing in Chicago.
A key factor in the Great Lakes
cleanup, Mayo told a two-day Tech-
nology Transfer Design Seminar at-
tended by 130 engineers from gov-
ernment and industry, is the drastic
shift in policy contained in the Fed-
eral Water Pollution Control Act
Amendments that became law in
October.
The new law authorizes control of
pollutant discharges wherever they
are, he said, rather than basing all
controls on the capacity of a river or
lake to absorb pollutants.
Keeping It Out
"The philosophy now is no longer-
'how much we can put into the
water,' but rather 'how much we can
keep out of the water.' No longer
do we operate on the assumption
that a discharger may put whatever
he wishes except to the extent regu-
lated. Instead, we start from the
opposite end—the very right to dis-
charge at all is conditioned by com-
pliance with requirements.
"Because this requirement will be
imposed throughout the Nation, no
longer can a discharger threaten to
leave a State to avoid pollution con-
trol requirements, because wherever
he goes he will encounter similar
requirements."
States will no longer be subject to
Inside EPA, published month-
ly for all employees of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agen-
cy, welcomes contributed articles,
photos, and letters of general
interest.
Such contributions will be
printed and credited, but they
may be edited to fit space limits.
Van V. Trumbull, editor
Office of Public Affairs
Room W239, EPA
Washington, D.C. 20460
Tel. (202) 755-0883
"economic blackmail" or forced to
choose between "clean water and
jobs," Mayo declared.
Application of the new philoso-
phy will take a decade or more,
according to stages specified in the
law. The first phase, to be attained
in three to five years, will require
effluent limitations "based upon the
best practicable control technology
currently available," Mayo said. "In
addition, where tighter controls are
necessary to protect water quality
standards, then tighter controls will
be imposed . . . national minimum
controls (to be) met everywhere in
the Nation."
Goals for the '80s
The second phase is working to-
ward the goal of "best available
technology" by 1983, and the na-
tional goal of "no discharge" by
1985. "These are goals to be con-
sidered in the setting of require-
ments," Mayo said. "They are to be
weighed in the balancing of costs
and benefits; they are not themselves
requirements."
The upgrading of waste water
treatment, and especially the control
of nitrogen and phosphorus dis-
charges, are particularly important
to protecting the quality of the Great
Lakes, that drain the heartlands of
the United States and Canada, Mayo
said. Both nations are cooperating
more closely than ever before, and
on many technical and administra-
tive fronts, to carry out and imple-
ment the Joint Canadian-U.S.
Agreement on the Great Lakes
Water Quality signed by President
Nixon and Prime Minister Elliot
Trudeau last April.
An international board has ap-
pointed study groups to investigate
and make recommendations on pol-
lution of the "upper lakes," Superior
and Huron; dredging practices and
regulations; pollution from land
drainage; and over-all research co-
ordination.
$2 Million in Grants
EPA has issued five grants total-
ling nearly $2 million for water
pollution control planning and man-
agement work by States and cities
in the Great Lakes area, Mayo said.
These include:
• $227,500 to the Michigan Wa-
ter Resources commission to help
develop a water quality management
plan for southeastern Michigan to
be completed next month.
• $328,000 to the City of Cleve-
land for a detailed pollution assess-
ment of rivers and lake waters with-
in a 30-mile radius of the city
scheduled for completion in March.
• $275,000 to Pennsylvania's De-
partment of Environmental Re-
sources for a management plan for
the Erie, Pa., area; this will also
be a vehicle by which construction
grants will be funded there by the
State and EPA.
• $33,000 to Allen County, Indi-
ana, for a detailed work plan to
control pollution of the Maumee
River Basin by sediment and agri-
cultural runoff. This may lead to a
demonstration project, Mayo said,
and also provide "a sociological
study ... of problems encountered
in selling water pollution abatement
techniques to landowners." The re-
port on the study is due in April.
Spray Irrigation
• $466,000 to the Michigan Wa-
ter Resources Commission to evalu-
ate the disposal of sewage waste
water by spray irrigation on land in
Muskegon County, Michigan. This
is a five-year program ending in
June, 1977.
• $570,000 to East Lansing,
Michigan, incorporating construc-
tion and research as well as planning
and management. A spray irrigation
field and four small lakes on the
Michigan State University campus
will be used to demonstrate tertiary
treatment by biological processes,
and water recycling. This is a two-
year project due to end in October,
1974.
Mayo's talk entitled "New Direc-
tions for Clean Water" led off the
seminar.
Other EPA speakers included Al-
bert C. Printz, Office of Refuse Act
Programs, and Charles H. Swanson,
Office of Water Programs.
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—photo by Ernest Bucci
Study carrels and periodical racks fill the smaller leg of the L-shaped
library. Window wall is at left, open stacks at right, out of picture.
New Headquarters Library
To Serve Management Needs
EPA's Headquarters Library was
opened this month on the second
floor of the Waterside Mall building
in southwest Washington.
The library has all-new, birch-
veneered furniture: open stacks,
study carrels, chairs, tables, and pe-
riodical racks. It is carpeted
throughout its 11,000 square feet
of space. One wall includes floor-
to-ceiling windows overlooking the
mall plaza to the east.
Sarah M. Thomas, chief of the
Library Systems Branch, Manage-
ment and Organization Division,
said the library's collection totals
about 45,000 books, periodicals,
and microfiche cards, not all of
which are yet catalogued.
Nucleus from Crystal Mall
Most of the items have been
transferred from the former Water
Quality Office library in Crystal
Mall, Arlington, Va., so the collec-
tion is predominantly concerned
with documents on water pollution
control.
Miss Thomas said she hopes to
correct this imbalance as rapidly as
budget and staff limitations permit,
and to increase the library's collec-
tion in other aspects of environmen-
tal protection.
"Our chief aim at the Headquar-
ters Library," she said, "is to serve
the headquarters staff, particularly
in the areas of environmental law,
economics, management, and social
impacts."
Scientific and technical aspects of
the Agency's work will continue to
rely on other EPA libraries, she
said. There are 37 EPA libraries
altogether, including one in each
of the 10 Regional Offices, the four
National Environmental Research
Centers, and more than a score of
specialized collections at satellite
laboratories and field stations.
EPA's largest library and central
point for scientific and technical in-
formation is at NERC-Cincinnati,
Miss Thomas said. Through the
Cincinnati library, EPA people have
access to more than 30 different
computerized scientific data files
and search services maintained by
other government agencies, universi-
ties, and private research organiza-
tions.
Other, smaller EPA libraries are
strong in such areas as radiation,
pesticides, toxicology, air pollution,
New Ecology Lab
Being Established
At NERCCorvallis
A National Ecological Research
Laboratory is being established at
the National Environmental Re-
search Center in Corvallis, Dr. A.
F. Bartsch, NERC-Corvallis direc-
tor, announced last month.
Dr. Norman Glass will be acting
director of the new laboratory.
It will investigate the effects
of air pollutants and toxic substances
on terrestrial ecosystems—interde-
pendent plant-and-animal communi-
ties living on land.
The new laboratory will be the
ninth operating unit in the NERC-
Corvallis complex and the first to
deal with air pollution; research at
the eight others—both in Corvallis
and in seven other cities throughout
the country—centers on water pol-
lution.
Much of the research to be as-
sumed by the new laboratory is now
being done at Research Triangle
Park. About 25 persons now work-
ing there will be moved to Corvallis.
The moving of people and equip-
ment is scheduled to be complete by
the end of January.
Dr. Bartsch said the National Eco-
logical Research Laboratory would
have three branches—for studies in
plant ecology, animal ecology, and
ecosystems analysis. The latter will
integrate data from the first two
branches and provide statistical and
computer skills needed for the de-
sign of experiments, analysis of re-
sults, and simulation modeling.
and meteorology. The Headquarters
Library is in close touch with all
collections in the EPA library sys-
tem and can refer users with special
needs to the center most likely to
have the information they want, and
arrange for literature searches and
interlibrary loans.
Miss Thomas and her staff of
four are using a computer terminal,
linking the library to the National
Institutes of Health in Bethesda,
Md., to maintain an instantly avail-
able record of all book and journal
holdings.
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Spanish-Americans Learn
To Use Pesticides Safely
Spanish-speaking farm workers in
Colorado will be trained in the safe
use of pesticides under a program
launched last month by the EPA's
Region VIII Office in Denver, Re-
gional Administrator John Green
has announced.
Training sessions will be held over
the next nine months at four farm-
ing centers in the State for about
EPA Yule Tree
Is Made Entirely
Of Reusable Stuff
This ecological Christmas tree
—made entirely of reusable ma-
terials—was created to decorate
the Computer Center at the Na-
tional Environmental Research
Center at Corvallis, last month.
The three-foot, wire-and-plas-
tic "tree" was decked with hand-
made felt versions of the EPA
logotype and topped with a cir-
cular art nouveau monogram.
Mrs. Jean Fernald, a card
punch operator at the computer
center, made the tree with some
help from her 20-year-old daugh-
ter Linda.
150 workers, Green said.
Textbooks and other materials
will be translated into Spanish, and
Spanish-speaking instructors and
consultants will be used. The Rupert
J. Hernandez Research Foundation
of Denver will conduct the classes,
under a $40,000 contract with EPA.
Another 78 trainees will receive
instruction to qualify as State-certi-
fied pesticide applicators, equipped
to handle pesticides too dangerous
for use by farm owners and workers.
Such certification could lead to bet-
ter paying jobs with government
agencies or farm cooperatives or as
self-employed exterminators.
"Instructions on pesticide con-
tainers are usually in English, and
Spanish-speaking farm workers may
be unaware of the dangers," said
Green. "Cautions from English-
speaking employers can be mis-
understood, resulting in accidents.
We are hopeful that this training
program will reduce those dangers."
A similar training program under
a $23,750 EPA contract, is already
under way at El Paso Community
College in Colorado Springs. Its aim
is to train Spanish-Americans as
waste water treatment plant opera-
tors. As sewage treatment becomes
more widespread and complex, the
importance of having well trained
operators increases.
The 20 Spanish-speaking trainees
in the El Paso College program are
also seeking State certification and
eligibility for higher job ratings and
pay-
Eye on Chattanooga
An EPA aerial photography team
from the National Environmental
Research Center at Las Vegas, Nev.,
recently made a reconnaissance sur-
vey over the Chattanooga, Tenn.,
area to evaluate the use of pho-
tography and infrared scanning in
the recording of industrial waste
discharges, drainage patterns, and
land use.
Asa B. Foster Jr.
Civil Engineers
Elect EPA Official
From Region IV
Asa B. Foster Jr., director of
Categorical Programs for EPA's Re-
gion IV in Atlanta, was recently
elected president of the Georgia Sec-
tion of the American Society of Civil
Engineers.
Foster has been in the Federal
service for more than 11 years,
starting as a staff engineer for the
Federal Water Pollution Control
Administration.
He is a graduate of Georgia Insti-
tute of Technology and is a regis-
tered professional engineer in Ala-
bama, Georgia, Tennessee, Ken-
tucky, and North and South Caro-
lina.
Cywin Appointed
To RPI Committee
Allen Cywin, director of the Ef-
fluent Guidelines Division, Office of
Air and Water Programs, has been
named to the Trustees' Visiting
Committee for the Engineering
School at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, Troy, N.Y.
Cywin is a civil engineering grad-
uate of RPI in the class of 1948.
Before being named to his present
post last May, Cywin was with
EPA's Office of Research and Mon-
itoring.
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Land Use Controls Called Ineffective
In spite of strong new legislation
to preserve air and water quality,
the Nation's environmental priorities
are out of balance because no
matching efforts have been made to
preserve the land, according to John
R. Quarles Jr., EPA General Coun-
sel and assistant administrator for
Enforcement.
There is a "striking contrast,"
Quarles told an industry conference
in New York recently, "between the
comprehensive, well-developd pro-
grams established by Congress (in
air and water pollution) and our al-
most total ineffectiveness at any
level of government in dealing with
the protection of our land."
"Our shorelines are being gob-
bled up, our wetlands dredged and
filled, our mountain valleys dammed
and flooded, our streams drastically
altered by channelization, our wil-
derness areas cut with highways and
blotched with development," he
said. "AH this damage to environ-
mental values and the quality of life
results from the lack of effective
mechanisms to control development.
Government To Blame
"The culprit is the total institu-
tional structure of ... government,
as well as those who develop the
land for industrial, commercial, or
residential use.
"The solution of land use and de-
velopment problems now stands out,
I believe, as the number one priority
crisis confronting the environmental
movement today."
Quarles called the new Coastal
Zone Management Act a "partial
response" to the problem, but urged
passage of broader legislation to
help States manage the use of land
in many "areas of critical environ-
mental concern."
Quarles was keynote speaker at a
one-day conference on "The Envi-
ronment and Public Policy," spon-
sored by the Conference Board, a
nonprofit organization for research
in economics and business manage-
ment.
EPA's enforcement program will
continue and become stiffer as the
regulatory framework laid out in the
new air and water pollution control
laws becomes effective, Quarles told
his audience of 300 persons, mostly
from industry. He defended the emo-
tionalism and fervor of the environ-
mental movement as rooted in the
American traditions of reform and
"tough crusading zeal."
Other Changes Cited
The environmental crusade, he
said, is one protest movement among
many "currents of social and po-
litical change that have moved
through American society."
"Predominant in recent years has
been the long struggle to provide
equal opportunity and social justice
to blacks and other racial minorities.
One also thinks of the continuing
drive to achieve equality of status
for women. Stretching our memory
just a bit, we recall years of contro-
versy before labor achieved elemen-
tary rights at the bargaining table."
He also cited economic and po-
litical reforms going back through
the 19th century to origin of the
Nation in a war of revolt.
"In all these cases the existing
structure of society was brought
under sharp attack," said Quarles.
"Long struggle and bitter divisive-
ness accompanied efforts to correct
a weakness or abuse in the . . .
institutions of the day. Difficult
though the turmoil was for all con-
cerned, however, in the end these
protest movements brought improve-
ment to our society and new strength
to our country."
Better Method Developed
For Measuring Mercury
A new and more accurate
method for measuring the amount
of mercury in plant and animal tis-
sues has been developed by workers
at the National Environmental Re-
search Center at Las Vegas.
The method is accurate and re-
peatable for amounts less than a
microgram (millionth of a gram),
according to Dr. Alan Moghissi,
head of the Center's Radiological
Research Program.
Unique feature of the new tech-
nique, he said, is that it is now
possible to correct for portions of
mercury that may be lost in the
process of preparing the sample for
measurement by atomic absorption
spectrometery.
To measure heavy metals in any
biological sample, he explained, the
sample is first de-watered and then
"digested"—or burned—by explod-
ing it in a sealed stainless steel
"bomb" filled with oxygen under
pressure. Mercury in the residual
ash is then measured by the spec-
trometer, but great care must be
taken to see that no combustion
products escape when the "bomb"
is opened.
In spite of all precautions, some
mercury will be lost, Moghissi said,
and the loss can be as high as 90
percent. "With our new method, we
don't care how much we lose, we
can still measure it."
The key step is the addition of
radioactive "tracer" mercury to the
sample before placing it in the
bomb. The amount of the tracer is
measured by a radiation detection
instrument before and after the ex-
plosion. Then when the spectrome-
ter measures the total mercury left
in the ash, the amount lost in the
processing can be inferred from the
decline in radioactivity.
Erich Bretthauer, principal re-
searcher for the new technique, and
Dr. Moghissi are writing a tech-
nical paper about it, showing their
evidence that the "tracer" mercury
mixes completely in the combustion
process with the sample's natural
mercury.
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